I just went to Amazon, peeked into the hardback of In pursuit of Dreams and found what they say is the e-book edition. There I found the paperback version for sale at multiple prices ranging from $15.70 new to $20 something — used! I’ve heard other authors complain that they saw their book for sale used even though they never knew a copy had sold nor had they been paid. My real question is: Why would anyone pay more for a “used” copy than the “new” price?

Back to “Lesson Learned” –yesterday I went with Mark to get work done on the RV and he asked me to wait a minute before leaving to be sure it was good to go. I had a copy of my memoir in the car, so I started reading. I got so engrossed that I didn’t see him leave and sat there reading at least ten minutes after he had gone.

Now before you think I’m one course short of a certificate (as we used to say at the community college), I wrote parts many years ago. But the lesson learned is that though I had gone through the manuscript so many times that I was sick of it, I wasn’t actually reading it. Mostly I was looking for little punctuation errors I tend not to see on screen, and I see some still in the finished book.

To repeat The Lesson: Get an editor. Get a reader. Get more than one reader. I was too proud and too confident of my ability to see errors. I wanted it to be read only when it was complete and in print. Really dumb!